Tuesday, April 17, 2012

On Sunday, 15 April, the Department of National Defence sent out a press release which David Pugliese posted.

The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Lead
Minister for Search and Rescue, is pleased to announce an $8.1M federal
investment in search and rescue prevention and response in Canada.

“Our government understands the importance of investing in new
initiatives aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of
search and rescue in Canada,” said Minister MacKay. “This money will
support projects that build search and rescue capacity and strengthens
the response of search and rescue.”

In 2012-2013, this new funding will allow for the purchase of
life-saving equipment and tools; the development of training standards;
collaborative interoperability exercises between the Canadian Forces,
the Canadian Coast Guard, Parks Canada, and the over 15,000 specially
trained air-ground-marine search and rescue volunteers; the development
of outreach prevention and awareness programs to targeted audiences like
flight safety for private pilots; the building of search and rescue
capacity in the marine environment on the coasts; and the development of
virtual trainers for the air and marine search and rescue environments.

All very nice, except for one small problem. This is not new money. This has been around for well over a decade. David Pugliese started to get a raft of emails.

As mentioned, Defence Watch readers took issue with the
claim about new funding. They say the funding is awarded each year and
has been for more than a decade.

In fact this fund was started back in 1988 and has been allocated annually since then. It also has never really grown from the amount originally set aside.

Pugliese went to MacKay's office for an explanation and discovered ...

So it isn’t exactly “new” money after all. It’s the same money and each
year the list with the $8 million worth of new projects is issued
annually.

This is nothing more than MacKay trying to generate some "good" press. Here, however, is the best part. (Emphasis mine)

That quest is, at times, reaching desperation, sources say. As an example, they point to the March 20th
press release issued by DND, which NDHQ communications specialists are
still talking about. That one had Mr. MacKay announcing a contract for
$5,943 for a firm to put some barriers up.

This useless boob needs to be taken to lunch. Somebody can clean out his office while he's gone and remove his name from the DND telephone directory before he gets back.

6 comments:

And CF personnel still vote for this party of lying pricks because they are pro-military.Jesus christ on a crutch; this bunch of twats only value the military for the usefulness that they provide in good publicity and covering their arses. Oh and the brass, they love them for the positions they will be offered after their service ends.MacKay needs to be given a weapon and sent into theatre just to remind the shitbag that his posturing has consequences.Fuck him and his handler Harper too.

Oh, Dave, c'mon! Why did you hafta go and ruin an excellent post with sexist language? "Useless boob" is so...I dunno...useless! Not to mention insulting to women. I mean, how would you like one of your body parts to be called useless *and* to have it compared to Peter MacKay?!?

Then there's the story of how God created the first woman with three breasts and asked her if she wanted any changes. The woman decided she would prefer to have just two, so God removed one. Then God thought "What should I do with this useless boob? Oh, I know!" and God created the first man. :)

I believe you are correct, Dave that it is not a sexist term. I wonder if it comes from the old slang booberkin? There's a nice list of old opprobrious names here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/the-dulpickles-and-nigmenogs-of-1699/